Dreams Never Die
by Maid Malcolm
Summary: Jake deals with somebody he thought he left behind long ago. (Post-war.)


My name is Jake.

Sometimes, I wake up screaming. Sometimes, in cold sweat. I don't usually wake up to find that I can't move a single muscle. Panic rose in me as I willed myself to struggle against the bonds tying me to the chair, but I couldn't get my muscles to –

Wait, chair?

{Are you sure you want to do that, Fearless Leader?} A mocking, somehow familiar voice rose in my mind; like thought-speak, but... to myself. {I'm pretty sure that trying to escape is _my_ job.}

{Who... what...?}

{Forgotten already. I'm hurt.} Unbidden by me, my eyes scanned the dingy, half-collapsed shack, walls and surfaces barely visible in the moonlight. I knew the shack.

{You're the Yeerk.} I searched my memory. {Temrash.} But... that wasn't right. {You're dead.}

{And yet, here I am.}

{You're dead. I felt... wait. This is a dream. You're just... you're just in my mind.}

{I was always in your mind, Jake.}

{No, you were in my brain. But we killed you. You're gone; you can't hurt anybody any more.}

{I beg to differ. I can hurt you.} Pictures flashed in my vision; Cassie crying, Marco bleeding out on the ground, Rachel biting into a cobra that was my brother... I tried to force them away, but I couldn't. I wasn't in control. I couldn't look away; there was nowhere else to look. There was nowhere to hide. The Yeerk riffled through my memories and played them for me like a slide show; except that there was no Yeerk. There couldn't be. He was dead.

{YOU. ARE. NOT. REAL!} I screamed. I remembered his death throes. I remembered Cassie's hand on mine. I remembered that I'd never been alone in the shack; I'd been watched at all times, my friends ready to free me by killing Temrash or, if necessary, killing us both. {This didn't happen. And it isn't happening.}

{What, a voice in your head isn't dredging up memories of your past? Oh, Jake. I assure you that that is happening.}

{You're not Temrash.}

{I'm his voice in your head. Does it make any practical difference whether or not I have a body any longer?}

{No. You're...} my head was clearing, the way it does when you slowly realise that you're dreaming. Temrash's voice in my brain wasn't acting like Temrash. {I know you.}

{I'm the little voice in your head, Jake, my boy.} The voice changed. Became painful, every word thundering like the pounding of blood in your skull when you're suffocating. With a hint of familiar mockery.

{Drode.}

{Aha, nice try.}

{What do you want? The war is over. I'm no threat to the Crayak's stupid cosmic chess game. Leave me alone.}

{You're right; you're insignificant now. Do you really think my master has time to mess about with useless people like you? You've played your part in the fate of the universe. The Drode wouldn't waste his time here.}

{Well, you just called the Crayak 'my master', so you can't really be anybody else.}

{I can't? Think, Jake. Really think about that.}

{Whoever you are, just... just leave me alone.}

The voice gave a mental sigh, and moved back into Temrash's tones. {You were right the first time, Jake. I'm you. And the great thing, the really great thing, about being a voice in your head is this: I am more powerful than Temrash, or the Drode, or the Crayak. You can't kill me. You can't outsmart me. And I will never be distracted by other, more important duties. I'm just here to protect myself... to protect you.}

{You call this protecting me?} I could hear the sobs in my own voice, although my cheeks were, of course, dry. The Temrash part of me was apparently in control of my tear ducts. Well... my dream body's tear ducts. I couldn't feel my actual cheeks, so maybe they were wet. I don't know.

{If you weren't dreaming of this, what do you suppose you would be dreaming about?}

{Frankly, I'd take "eaten by Visser Three" or "drowned while fleeing Taxxons" over this any day.}

{What about "tearing the throats from innocent slaves"? "Ejecting thousands of helpless prisoners into space"?} A brief picture accompanied each suggestion. {"Giving Rachel her final mission"?}

{I hate you,} I whispered. {I hate you so much.}

{I know, Midget,} Temrash murmured. In a cruel mockery of comfort, he forced forward a memory of my mother pushing hair off my brow after a nightmare. {That's good. It's safer that way.}

{Can't you just leave me alone?}

{You always ask me that. It never works.}

{Always...?}

{Think, Fearless Leader. Do you really think, in all the years since you and I met in that jacuzzi, that this would be the _first_ time you've had this dream? But I'll tell you what; you've been quite good about the whole thing today, so I'll give you a little reward. I'll give you control of your eyes until morning. Would you like that?}

Instantly, tears blurred my vision. I blinked them away and discovered, to my surprise, that I could blink. A movement as dramatic as moving my head or twitching a finger was still an impossibility, but I could move my eyes as easily as if they were, well, my eyes.

There was nothing to look at in the shack. Nothing I particularly wanted to see, anyway. So I did the only thing I could.

I squeezed my eyes shut, and waited for the rising sun to stain my vision red and wake me.


End file.
